Original -- The City Adel; "Behind the Mask" Title: Behind the Mask Author/Artist:ivoryandhorn Fandom: original -- the City Adel Pairing/Characters: Barakiel & Pevi Rating: PG-13 Warnings: Pevi's potty mouth Prompt Answered:Week 3 - Barakiel and Pevi with the title, "Behind the Mask." Length: ~700 Author's Notes: ...I think you can basically get everything you need to know about vessels from the fic itself, but if not, let me know?
“Don’t tell me you’ve finally lost your nerve, Barakiel. I’d be ever so disappointed.”
An almighty crash tore through the warehouse as Belphegor let loose yet another fireball that roared over the concrete. Pevi flinches in his hiding place behind a pile of crates, feeling the flames suck at the air around him as they passed. He’s running out of places to hide.
“What the fuck did you do to piss him off?” he hisses.
Sleep with his sister, kill his sister, send him the head. Among other things.
“And I let you live in my soul why?”
LET me? What makes you think you had a choice?
“Great, just great. Homicidal demon on my tail, homicidal angel in my head; just what I need,” Pevi mutters, heading down the nearest hallway. He doesn’t know whether it leads out or deeper into this stupid place but that last fireball had been too close for comfort—he’d felt the heat, even through his jacket, though his stacks of nice, solid, very flammable crates.
Before he could get very far, though, his beloved crates were blasted away and the force of it slams him into the wall, not to mention burns his jacket and t-shirt to shreds.
“Found you.”
Belphegor as a demon looked pretty much like the classic—red fur, goat’s eyes, horns and hooves, forked tail. The only part that didn’t fit was the snazzy designer suit, but Pevi’s in no position to be commenting on his choice of clothing; he’s too busy trying to figure out which fucking direction is up.
“Human, trust me when I say that I don’t actually have a grudge against you.” Belphegor wraps his clawed hands around Pevi’s neck, gentle, and lifts him up like that. “Just what’s hiding inside of you.”
And then the bastard starts squeezing.
Pevi flails and claws at his wrists, his fingers, something, anything; it’s not long before he starts to feel his lungs wheeze in panic, hungry for air that’s just not fucking coming and his vision’s starting to go blurry, starting to—fuck, starting to narrow, what the hell is Barakiel doing—
“Tick tock tick tock, Barakiel. How long do you think your vessel can last like this? Me, I say five minutes, but I wouldn’t bet any money on it.”
Suddenly his grip firms on Belphegor’s arms, which would’ve been great except Pevi’s not the one doing the grabbing. He feels the power move out of his body and sees the demon’s eyes widen in shock—haha, shock, fuck you Barakiel and your little lightning too—and then everything goes black.
Riding shotgun in his own body is kind of weird; he feels, distantly, what Barakiel’s saying and doing but at the same time, he doesn’t. Right now Barakiel’s cracking his knuckles and rolling his head as Pevi’s body reshapes itself into his—slimmer, blond and yellow-eyed, tanned, and really fucking girly despite whatever bull Barakiel spouts about angels being naturally androgynous or whatever.
“Belphegor, it’s been too long. How’s tricks? Still bitter, I see,” he hears himself—or rather, Barakiel—say.
There’s a smoking crater in the opposite wall where the demon got thrown when Barakiel decided to finally make his appearance and save their collective bacon. The only thing coming out of it is smoke and silence.
He hears the rough slide of rubble as Belphegor claws his way out, snazzy suit no longer quite so snazzy.
“You know how it is,” he says, brushing his suit back to pristine condition. “Eons of holding a grudge, I’m a little set in my ways.” Wings erupt from his back and yep, looks like they were stolen from some giant mutant bat. He cocks his head upwards. “Care to take it outside?”
Growing wings sounds like it should hurt, but it doesn’t; there’s just this awful feeling of stretch at his back and then they explode around him in a swirl of feathers. He feels his—okay, Barakiel’s—face stretch in a smile, feels the thrill of a good fight coming hum through Barakiel’s limbs.
“Let’s.”
He really, really hopes Barakiel remembers how breakable humans are this time around. Vessel or not, extended hospital stays were no kind of fun at all.